Have you noticed that North Carolina’s public schools have more coaches now than ever before? I am not talking about football or debate coaches. Rather, state education leaders have begun to use the term “coach” instead of the word “consultant,” because the latter evokes bad vibes among teachers and school administrators. Regardless of what you call them, these coaches are simply run-of-the-mill bureaucrats dispatched from high command to do the state’s bidding.
As we would expect, North Carolina’s education establishment has taken the coaching fad to the next, rather absurd, level. North Carolina’s public school system boasts at least a dozen different kinds of coaches, and most do not conduct any classroom instruction. According to a recent Journal of Staff Development article, the coaches “work alongside teachers to ensure instruction is targeted to meet students’ needs, is aligned with the district curriculum, and helps produce the desired student learning outcomes.” In other words, coaches attempt to do the job that teachers and administrators should have been doing in the first place.
Over the past two years, the state has spent millions to create “21st Century Literacy Coach” positions. Literacy coaches attempt to do what teacher education schools did not or would not do — they teach teachers how to teach reading. One may wonder, as I do, how an elementary or middle-school teacher could graduate with a degree in education and teach in our schools without knowing how to teach children how to read.
Low-performing schools and school districts can expect a visit by one or more leadership, transformation, or instructional coaches. Department of Public Instruction officials say a leadership coach “coordinates coaching and service delivery for 3-4 high needs districts and service delivery for a transformation school.” District transformation and school transformation coaches do the same incomprehensible activities at their respective levels. On the other hand, instructional coaches work with low-performing schools but offer “on-site support to help guide school leadership in developing school improvement plans.”
Data coaches are individuals that would “help school systems to use test data to improve student performance.” Using test data to improve student performance is a good idea, but teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors should be doing this already. The State Board of Education requested $2.3 million for data coaches, but, fortunately, the state legislature will not fund data coach positions in this year’s budget.
In late April, a legislative commission on dropout prevention recommended spending millions of taxpayer dollars on graduation coaches. A graduation coach would simply do the job that we expect teachers and guidance counselors to do, that is, talk to parents about their child’s progress and make sure that students under their care take the right courses. The idea has strong support among state education leaders, but currently, there is little legislative support for graduation coaches.
Finally, there are a number of other kinds of coaches, many who serve state and federal programs. These include reading coaches (Reading First), life coaches (state dropout prevention grant), school change coaches (Learn and Earn/Early College high schools), Positive Behavior Support coaches, and National Board Certification coaches. There are even coaches that teach the coaches how to coach!
According to state data, the number of consultants at the school district level alone has doubled over the last 10 years and approaches 1,300 statewide. The growing number of consultants and coaches is a symptom of an education establishment that has not come to terms with North Carolina’s dysfunctional public schools and dreadful schools of education. Indeed, coaches are simply another way that the state’s education establishment feigns innovation and reinforces the status quo.
Stoops is education policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation.